Recipe ~ Cocoa Meringue Kisses with Raspberries

One of the best presents I received for Christmas – the delectable Meringue Girls Cookbook. A vibrant, colourful and delicious book full of gorgeous meringue recipes, from the simple to the sublime… meringue kisses with fillings, meringue kisses that float in hot chocolate, meringue kisses with surprises contained within… meringue towers, slices and pies… it’s all here. With accompanying pictures that are almost too good to eat. I thought I would start with a relatively simple one and decided to make little meringue kisses and picked the chocolate flavour.

The Meringue Girls meringue mixture is the same one I always use – simply egg whites and caster sugar…however they recommend putting the caster sugar in the oven for around 5 minutes – I didn’t do this and it works just fine. I might try that way though next time to see if there’s a difference.

To make approx. 35 meringue kisses…

150g egg whites (5 medium eggs)

300g caster sugar

Pre heat the oven to 100- 120 degrees. Line a tray (or two) with baking parchment paper. Whisk the egg whites, slowly at first, then increase the speed until the egg whites form stiff peaks and you can hold the bowl upside down witgout the egg falling out. With the egg whites stiff and whisking at full speed add the sugar, tablespoon at a time. Once all the sugar is in, continue to whisk on full speed for around 5 minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Your mixture should be smooth and glossy.

To make the cocoa chocolate meringues… add a tablespoon of cocoa powder (good quality 70% cocoa) into the meringue mixture and whisk til just combined. Spoon the mixture into the piping bag and pipe out small amounts to form kisses. Once all piped, dust with cocoa powder. Bite sizes kisses like these should be baked in the pre heated oven for around 30-40 minutes. Take them out once they lift off the baking paper with their bases intact. Let meringues cool on the baking sheet.

I love the flavour of chocolate and raspberry together so think this makes a delicious way to serve the meringues. However I can also confirm they are just as tasty all alone with a cup of tea or coffee as a quick snack!

Blend (or mash!) a handful of raspberries with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a dash of lemon juice. Place a few of the chocolate meringues into a bowl with raspberries and drizzle the raspberry coulis over the top… .I also added another flavour – we received a tin of Italian Amarettini biscuits for Christmas also, so I smashed up a few of these and sprinkled them over the top… a bowl of amazingness right there..